


Reunion

by legitimate_salvage (ifinkufreaky)



Category: The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Angst and Porn, Established Relationship, F/M, Relationship Sex, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:27:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8925934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/legitimate_salvage
Summary: What a tragedy that when Naomi finally got back to Holden, he could barely touch her. 
Set between Nemesis Games and Babylon's Ashes. An exploration of how they got from the tension and angst at the end of NG to their new trust and solidarity in BA. Explored through sex because it's me. That's what I write.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holdenscoffee (spacebarista)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebarista/gifts).



Naomi just looked so tired.

When they got her back, Holden thought his heart might burst out of his chest. She had suffered so much oxygen deprivation, had flung herself unprotected through _the sheer void of space_ , and so when they got her home to the _Roci_ she looked like just his breath on her skin might tear it open.

The doctors on Luna brought her back to life as quickly as they could. Naomi spent her first days in “medical debriefing,” coming back to their suite only to sleep for over half of every cycle. Her cells slowly began to accept life-giving fluids, started to resume production of their normal hormones and proteins and adenosine triphosphate. She regained almost all of her lung function, and lost the rattle in her chest that had made it impossible for Holden to relax as he kept vigil at her bedside.

And just as it became clear that she was going to come through it all without any lifelong debilitating effects, the interrogations started. On Naomi and Holden’s first evening together that she was recovered enough to not need to be asleep, she was using up her strength to tell him the surprising and horrifying story of all that she'd been through. Not just from when they were apart, though that was bad enough, but also her deeper past. The time Before Him that she had always skipped over and around, described in only the vaguest of brushstrokes.

Some of it hit him in the gut in ways he knew he didn’t have any right to be feeling. She was a _mother_. After all her resistance to his dreams of starting a family together, he had to find out she had already done it once. But he couldn’t hold on to his selfish outrage when he thought about what Marco had put her through. Hiding her child from her. Turning her own pain against her, using it to make her even more powerless. Holden realized he was grinding his teeth, rubbed his jaw to try and convince the rage to go.

More than wanting to punish her tormenters, Holden wanted to do anything he could to ease Naomi’s suffering. He wanted to tell her she didn’t deserve any of that. He wanted to tell her he understood why she chose what she did, how _grateful_ he was that she had chosen to stay alive, so that she could be in his arms now. But Naomi never seemed to like that kind of raw concern, caring, love. It never seemed to make her feel better, only uncomfortable.

Holden could understand, now, why she had been hiding so much of herself from him all these years. Sort of. It hurt his ego to think Naomi never realized he could have handled knowing this, that it would not have changed his love for her. But what was even harder for him was that now it was all out in the open, she was still holding herself back. He felt it in the way her eyes would slide down off of his when they spoke, the half-finished sentences and the preemptive announcements of her weariness at the end of most days. Like she was fending him off, still.

When they were apart, Holden had spent plenty of those lonely night imagining their reunion. How he would take her face between his hands, kiss her like he was savoring a fine wine. In those dreams, Naomi would grin and clutch at him, make silly promises to never let him out of her sight. She’d set the _Roci’s_ airlocks to never cycle open for one of them unless the other was there too.

It hadn’t turned out like that. Her hollowed-out body and retraumatized mind left little openings for the playful intimacy he so desperately missed. She smiled plenty, teased him as much as she always had, but these were serving as tactics to wriggle out of his bids for closeness or sentimentality. She was the same Naomi she had always been, and she wasn’t. All of her hadn’t quite come back yet.

Holden couldn’t imagine what it would be like to keep so many secrets for so long, and then to have them all revealed. He was willing to be patient. He could do that for her. Especially with the distraction of the daily “debriefings” by the UN team they were all going through. He just wished he didn’t have to keep sleeping alone; Naomi’s physical healing was still slow and so Holden was waiting until she invited him into her room in their Luna suite. It hadn’t happened yet.

They settled into a kind of rhythm during that first week of interrogations. The family would all share coffee and breakfast together in the common room, then head off separately to their daily UN appointments. Holden chafed at his, but he knew the other three were likely being treated much less nicely than he was. The UN had many more reasons to think they might be holding useful information back, given the allegiances of their pasts. Everyone returned to their suite exhausted, feigning cheerfulness for the others’ benefit but retiring quickly to solitude and sleep.

Holden’s heart swelled a little more each day, despite all that. After he decided it was an act of love to give Naomi all the space she needed, the smallest signs of warmth felt like victories. Every time she ran her hand across his shoulders as she walked past him, or brushed her lips against his before retiring to her room, hope blossomed a little larger in his chest. She started staying up with him in the common room of the suite just a little longer, after Amos and Alex went to bed. It was sweet and awkward and strange. So much was subtly different now, and they had barely done more than kiss since she returned; it was almost like they were dating again. Except they had slept together before they ever “dated” anyway, so this was also something wholly new and itself.

He was paying attention to her in ways that he hadn’t in years. Had she always accented almost every sentence with a subtle gesture, or was that something she picked back up after being surrounded by Belters again? Did she always sigh before she said something she thought might disappoint him? Her blistered skin was healing, but in that first week any pressure beyond a gentle caress still hurt her. Holden could see it in the set of her jaw as she tried to tolerate as much of his affection as she could, before catching his eye apologetically and ducking away.

He was willing to be patient, but Holden found himself anticipating more and more, how it would be when he could finally make love to her. He was craving skin on skin, feeling her body pressed against him in passion again. He had so many feelings she wouldn’t let him tell her about, so he had to _show_ her. That’s how it had always been with them, and he needed it back.

Holden thought maybe Naomi was showing him she was ready, when a week later he awoke to find her crawling into his bed. There were no jokes, no teasing, no words at all. She drew her body alongside his in the minimal Luna gravity, wrapped her arms and legs around him, and snuggled her head into the space between his shoulder and chest.

Holden wrapped both arms around her and lay still, enjoying the moment. He felt the weight of worry dissolving out of all his muscles. Naomi had, of course, come back to him weeks ago, but it was like his body was only believing it now. He turned toward her, intertwined their legs, getting as much of himself flush against her body as he could. The weak Lunar gravity was perfect for her delicate state; he didn’t really need to worry about putting undue pressure on her just with his body weight.

He took a deep breath, face buried in her hair, and Naomi let out a long sigh. Her hands spread across his upper back, a gesture somewhere between feeling his skin and pulling him closer. He was wearing nothing but boxer shorts; Naomi had on some kind of night gown they had probably given her in the medical bay. Not exactly lingerie, but just feeling her arms and legs bare against him was enough to wake up every nerve ending in Holden’s body.

He wanted to kiss her but her face was still nestled into his chest. Feeling her breath across his skin there was maddening. He used his hands to get her attention instead, beginning a slow, spiraling caress across her back, down her waist, over her hips and back up again. He felt her start taking deeper breaths, but she remained motionless.

“Is this ok?” Holden finally asked, giving up on the silent approach.

“Fantastic,” Naomi said dreamily. She wiggled against him, though it felt a little half-hearted. Encouraging, but not the enthusiastic response he was hoping for. “I’m just trying to…” she started to explain herself, then trailed off.

“Don’t,” Holden murmured as he moved her head to the pillow, slid down along her side. “You don’t have to try anything, for me.” He started planting tiny kisses on her shoulder, drawing a line down her upper arm. “Just relax.” Then he unwrapped her arm from his torso, placed it on the pillow too. “And stop me if you need to.” He resumed his line of kisses on her shoulderblade, nuzzling his mouth against her so she could feel him through the thin fabric of the nightgown. He itched to take it off her, but he respected she wasn’t there yet.

His hands preceded his nipping mouth, down her flank and over the curve of her hip. When his lips passed over the hem of the nightgown he growled in victory against her skin. Naomi’s familiar giggle rang through his head like church bells, shaking more of his fears loose. They were going to be alright. They were still Holden and Naomi. He started pushing the fabric up, just ahead of his mouth as he kissed his way up the front of her thigh.

“Jim…” Naomi said. Instantly he stopped, looked up at her, in the dim nightlight of the room’s cyan-tinted LEDs.

“Am I pressing too hard?”

Naomi shook her head. “Kiss me,” she requested with a shy smile.

A wide smile spread over Holden’s face as he scooted back up in the bed. He propped himself up on one elbow over her. He laid the fingers of his other hand lightly on the back of her head, then leaned down and kissed her forehead.

Naomi smirked at him. “ _Kiss_ me!” she demanded, and Holden gave her a peck on the tip of her nose. How he loved to tease her. Naomi narrowed her eyes and wrapped both her hands around his head. Holden’s face was screwed up in silent laughter when she reached up and captured his mouth herself. All his remaining anxiety washed away in that kiss. Naomi pulled him down over her, her tongue advancing insistently into his mouth.

This was what Holden had been needing from her. He felt shallow admitting that to himself, but all these weeks had been like waiting for her to leave again because she wasn’t in his bed. He hoped she wanted to stay. He spent a long time reacquainting himself with all the planes and curves of her body, eventually working his hands under her nightgown. She moaned into his mouth when he ran his fingers up the inside of her thigh.

Holden wanted her to make that noise forever. He wanted to make Naomi feel so good that everything she’d been through was forgotten, obliterated by his love. He kissed down her chest, her belly, and settled himself between her legs. He ghosted his lips over the terrain between her hipbones, then her panties were coming off. He flung them across the room triumphantly, earning another smile from her. Then Holden settled down and pushed her thighs apart, and her face dropped into an anticipation deeper than smiles.

He kissed just above her clit first, humming in pleasure against her, letting the vibrations of his voice wake up the sensitive tissues beneath. Naomi arced into him, more ready than he had expected. Holden wanted to take this as gently as he could; she was still so weak. Soft pleasures to drown out weeks of pain. He worshipped her with long, slow passes of his tongue and gentle, enveloping sucks. Naomi was giving him a running commentary of her enjoyment with the soft little unconscious sounds that emanated from the back of her throat. Holden tried to time himself to her noises, increasing his intensity as her pitches rose.

Naomi’s writhing slowed. Her hand came to his hair, petting him in a way that seemed to be a bid for his attention. Holden lifted his eyes to her face. “I don’t think it’s going to happen for me tonight, honey,” she said apologetically. “I’m just not--”

Holden cut her off with a soothing, rumbling noise as he climbed the bed to lie beside her again, wrapping Naomi up in his arms. “That’s okay,” he said, “I’m just so happy to hold you again.” He squeezed her tightly into him. He was a little disappointed but he shoved that down, reminding himself that what was important here was the intimacy, and that she was welcoming his touch again.

“But I really want to feel you inside me,” Naomi added after a moment, face pressed into his neck. A confusing surge of tenderness and eagerness threatened to overwhelm Holden at her words. He had been prepared to stop the sexual activity completely for her, but this was what he longed for, to truly come home in her again. His hands spasmed against her and a weird sound came out of his throat.

Naomi’s hands smoothed down his stomach, palm pressing into his ready cock, still trapped inside his boxers. Holden screwed his eyes shut and groaned. Now the tables were turned, Naomi was taking her time reacquainting herself, and Holden was suddenly worried he wasn’t going to make it long enough to fulfill her request. Her absence had apparently regressed him to a teenager’s stamina.

Holden distracted her eager hands for a moment by tugging the nightgown off of her, wiggling out of his boxers. He trapped her hands playfully when she tried to get at him again, and pushed her gently onto her back.

He paused just to stare into her eyes for a long moment. Something deep in Naomi finally looked relaxed, and there were no more veils clouding her heart from him. She looked absolutely open, welcoming. When Holden started to slide himself slowly inside of her, he felt tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

The delicious feeling of her enveloping him was at once familiar and riveting. The cascade of oxytocin and dopamine in his brain made this feel like the single most exciting and important moment of his life. Naomi’s eyebrows creased in an overwhelmed expression of her own, but when he hesitated she clutched at him, pulling him deeper into herself. His hips slid home against hers and Holden stopped again, savoring every sensation. It was like no time had passed, and like their very first time, all at once. Naomi’s eyes were shining with the hint of tears, too.

Then Naomi started to rock her hips. It was just a small motion, but in the fractional gravity of Luna they started moving together almost as if she were the one on top. Holden’s eyebrows rose and he groaned.

“Do you like that?” she asked softly. It sounded as if she had started off saying it to tease him, but ended up meaning it completely earnestly.

“God, Naomi,” he replied, letting his tone answer her question. He started moving his hips in time with her, pulling out a bit more, returning home a little harder. Excitement and pleasure tingled through Holden’s entire body. And underneath that, something darker. A deep, primal part of himself was waking, and he closed his eyes so she wouldn’t see. She had been gone because another man had taken her. A man who had once had her like this. Now she was back in Holden’s bed, and he felt an undeniable urge to mark his territory. Reclaim her. His thrusts grew more forceful and he relished the way the sounds she was making took on a higher pitch.

“Jim…” she called out, her voice sounding both ecstatic and confused.

He opened his eyes, stopped worrying about what she might read there. They were Jim and Naomi, they were together again, she was _his._ He knew his eyes looked ferocious as he stared into her face, slammed himself into her with uncharacteristic force. Let her see what she was doing to him. What he needed to do to her.

Her brows were creased, her eyes pleading, but in the best possible way. She buried one hand in his hair and started chanting: “yes, yes, yes,” with every thrust.

Holden could feel his orgasm building, tried to look at her all the way through. But the sensations were too delicious, too overwhelming, and he found himself burying his face in her neck as he came. He became slightly aware of his teeth digging into her flesh, and disengaged his jaw before he did more damage.

He shuddered through the last few jolts of ecstasy, then slumped on top of her. Holden felt keenly grateful for the low lunar gravity allowing him to relax completely without having to worry about crushing her. He sighed into Naomi’s neck, looking at the circle of whitened indents he had left there. “Sorry. Thank you.”

Naomi hummed in response, ran her fingers idly over the mark. A moment later, she spoke again. “Okay. Now I’m ready.”

It took Holden a second to realize what she was talking about, and by then she was already guiding his hand between her legs. He slid his fingers between her folds and started working her clit just the way she had taught him years ago, just the way she liked it.

“Tell me what you were thinking just now,” Naomi said. From the urgency in her voice, he could tell she was already halfway there, wanted his words to help push her over the edge.

“I was thinking,” Holden growled into her ear, “that you’re all mine.” He kept his voice low and intent, and smiled when she arced herself into his hand. “I’ve got you. And now that I have you back, I’m never letting you go again.” He shifted his grip, so he could penetrate her and put pressure on her clit at the same time. “I’m keeping you forever … always by my side … you belong to me.” He was a little worried he was sounding like a creep, but Naomi’s limbs were beginning to seize up and tremble. She was so close. Holden switched back to that careful, focused attention with one finger, on and around her clit, just how she was most likely to come. “…you’re _mine,_ ” he rumbled one last time, and Naomi wailed out her orgasm, much louder than usual, as her back arched and her fingers clawed at him. He had never seen her more beautiful.

Idly, Holden wondered if the walls between the rooms in this suite were more, or less, soundproof than the internal walls on the _Roci._ He figured he’d get his answer at breakfast tomorrow, when Amos and Alex greeted him knowing smirks, or didn’t.

They settled back into the bed comfortably, loosely wrapped in each others’ limbs, and Naomi gave a contented, yet exhausted sigh. “Was it too much?” Holden fretted. He had started to forget her body might still be sensitive somewhere around the last half hour.

“Probably,” Naomi replied philosophically. “But definitely worth it.”


End file.
